“Prescribed burning is a commonly used management tool for upland hardwood forests, with fuel reduction, ecosystem restoration, and wildlife habitat improvement often cited as primary goals,” says Katie Greenberg, project leader of the SRS Upland Hardwoods unitwho directs the wildlife research component of the multidisciplinary study. “Although ecosystem ‘restoration’ burns are being used more frequently across large landscapes with complex and diverse topography, the knowledge about how different frequencies, seasons, or severities of burns affect wildlife communities is incomplete. This long-term research is providing insight into how birds, reptiles and amphibians, small mammals, insects, and forest vegetation respond to repeated burning and burn severity over time.”

Since 2002, researchers have conducted two mechanical fuel reductions in one of the treatments; three low-intensity prescribed fires in another; and a high-severity prescribed fire (with heavy tree mortality) followed by two additional low-intensity burns in the third fuel reduction treatment–all on the study area in the Green River Game Land.

Over the next few years, SRS scientists and research partners from North Carolina State University andHighpoint University will study how reptiles and amphibians, breeding birds, insects, and vegetation respond to fuel reduction treatments in the long-term. The study is a research partnership with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. Research results will help land managers establish objectives and plan science-based treatments to meet their forest management and restoration goals.